Prisoners must be allowed to vote, Council of Europe warns Britain

[muriel_volestrangler]

Strasbourg tells government to overturn ban ruled illegal in landmark case or face thousands more compensation claims

The Council of Europe has issued an unprecedented warning to the British government to take urgent steps to enable prisoners to vote in the forthcoming general election or face thousands more compensation claims.

The committee of ministers issued the warning six years after a former prisoner, John Hirst, won a landmark case in the European court of human rights in which Britain's blanket ban on prisoners voting was declared illegal.
...
Now Strasbourg has issued an even firmer warning, strongly urging British authorities "to rapidly adopt measures, of even an interim nature, to ensure the execution of the court's judgment before the forthcoming general election".

The ministers also warned that failure to act could lead to thousands more compensation claims from sentenced inmates denied the right to vote. In diplomatic language, the Council of Europe said "the increasing number of persons potentially affected by the restriction could result in similar violations affecting a significant category of persons, giving rise to a substantial risk of repetitive applications to the European court".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/09/prisoners-vote-general-election-europe

I'll be well pissed off if this costs the public money just because Straw and others didn't get off their arses and sort this out, because they were too scared of 'looking soft' to actually fix the law.